Michael Glenn Chugg (born 15 June 1947) is an Australian entrepreneur, businessman and concert tour promoter. As a promoter and manager he was a founder of Frontier Touring Company (1979–99) and Michael Chugg Entertainment (2000–present). On 8 June 1998, he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia with the citation "for service to music and the performing arts, particularly in relation to the promotion of Australian artists and to fundraising for youth and children's charities". In 2010, he co-authored his autobiography, Hey, You in the Black T-Shirt: The Real Story of Touring the World's Biggest Acts, with journalist, Iain Shedden. In March 2014 on the 50th anniversary of his start as a promoter, Denis Handlin (ex CEO of Sony Music Australia) opined "Chuggy is noisy, wild, cantankerous, the oldest teenager I know and very often a nightmare to deal with. But somehow we all love him because he lives and sweats the business with 100 per cent persistence and passion". At the ARIA Music Awards of 2019 Chugg received the ARIA Industry Icon Award.
Biography
1947–1964: Early years
Michael Glenn Chugg was born on 15 June 1947 in Launceston to Victor and Lorna (née Hancock) Chugg, the eldest of four children. His grandmother, Ella Chugg, was his "best friend".
He credits his great-grandfather with his idiosyncratic use of profanity "the first thing he did was taught me to swear. And it's always been a major part of my delivery of things. There might have been one or two instance over the 40 years where I was probably out of order but in the main it's usually been because it needed to be done". He attended Glen Dhu Primary School and then Queechy High School.
1964–1979: Launceston to Melbourne
Chugg's career as a promoter began on 16 March 1964, when at 16 he organised a dance at the Trades Hall in Launceston for the local cycling club. About 300 people turned up for a profit of £80. He was an amateur cyclist, he volunteered to be a track announcer and then became a sports broadcaster for horse races, trotting, greyhounds and football.
His career as a Tasmanian radio announcer ended after he called a live Melbourne greyhound race: the lead dog was ahead by five lengths as he commentated, "Well, I'll be fucked, it's fallen over". Chugg started "running dances all over Tasmania ... I was just a working class kid". He became the band manager of local artists, The Chevrons, and arranged performances of visiting mainland acts, including Bobby and Laurie and The Easybeats.
Chugg moved to Melbourne in 1967 where he worked for the Australian Musicians Booking Organisation (AMBO), run by Gary Spry, Jeff Joseph and Darryl Sambell. At AMBO he met a 16-yr old, Michael Gudinski, whom Chugg described as "this young guy there with red hair and a big nose who was booking all these new bands", they became friends, business associates and sometime rivals. In the late 1960s Gudinski, together with Michael Browning, set up the Consolidated Rock Agency, Chugg started working for them.
In 1970, Chugg married Liselotte 'Lilo' Reisner, later that year Consolidated Rock opened a Sydney office and Chugg moved there to run it with Phil Walker. In June 1971 Consolidated Rock organised a concert at the Sydney Town Hall featuring Billy Thorpe & the Aztecs and Daddy Cool. Whilst well attended the organisers were criticised by attendees and, in particular, a music newspaper, Go-Set. As a result, Consolidated Rock launched a rival magazine, The Daily Planet, however its high running costs resulted in the closure of the magazine and Consolidated Rock.
Chugg and fellow agent Roger Davies then opened a new agency, Sunrise, in Sydney in late 1971. Their clients included Sherbet. It became a national company when it joined with Phillip Jacobsen's Melbourne-based, Let It Be agency, which handled Daddy Cool and Spectrum. When Davies left in 1975, to continue his career in the United States, Chugg was invited to join Gudinski's Premier Artists agency. At the same time, Chugg was managing acts and working as a freelance tour coordinator with Paul Dainty Corporation. He also spent time overseas, including the United Kingdom, managing Richard Clapton, and Kevin Borich.